Now you can build your own DIY phone with Arduino

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Adafruit’s Limor Fried shows us how to create your own $125 phone using Arduino and a FONA Shield.

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Walking into your local Verizon Wireless store or going online to buy a gadget is so 2014. Instead of shelling out hundreds of dollars for that iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, why not make your own for a fraction of the cost? Nowadays, nearly two-thirds of the American population own a smartphone, and for many, these devices are a key entry point to the online world. But what about the age of basic cellphones, like that old-school Nokia 5110, which packed just enough features to communicate with your friends and family via text or voice, keep busy playing Snake and set morning alarms? If you’re looking for something reminiscent of the late ‘90s, then you’ll love Adafruit’s newly-revaled Arduin-o-Phone — the brainchild of Limor Fried (aka Lady Ada) herself.

While you may not be able to accept Facebook friend requests, reply to emails or browse the web, this DIY project packs all of the necessary functions. Even better, it doesn’t require an extensive lineup of supplies to get started. As its name would imply, the Arduin-o-Phone is based on an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) along with a few other components including a FONA Shield for cellular network connection to make calls, a 2.8” TFT Shield for its resistive touch display, a GSM antenna and SIM card, and a LiPo battery for power. Additionally, the device can either be used with a headset or a speaker and mic combination for those looking for a more “hold it up and talk” style.

Designed with flexibility in mind, the capabilities of the Arduin-o-Phone can be expanded upon, or simply left in its barebones form. Using Adafruit’s libraries, Makers can devise their own dialer with less than 200 lines of code, as well as create their own interface and customize an app using the Arduino IDE.

“Most of the soldering happens on the FONA shield. Don’t forget to solder it with stacking headers,” Fried advises.

To piece it all together, attach the mini speaker and wired electret microphone, solder the vibrating motor disc, and add the LiPo battery. From there, insert the SIM card and GSM antenna into the uFL connector, and plug the FONA Shield onto the Arduino. Connect the Uno to the computer and upload the Arduin-o-Phone sketch.

And voilà, you just made your own phone! Intrigued? Check out a step-by-step breakdown of the build on Adafruit, and access its code on Github here.

Adafruit teardown of Moto 360 reveals maXTouch inside

In what may have been the most highly-anticipated Android Wear smartwatch to date, the Moto 360 is equipped with a bold round face, heart rate monitor, and comes in both black and grey metal finishes. During a recent teardown from the Adafruit crew, Limor Fried even referred to it as a “jam-packed watch [that’s] kind of intense. [They] basically crammed a phone into a watch.”

Upon dissecting the device, Fried reveals an MXT112S capacitive controller embedded within the watch, thereby confirming that the device is indeed powered by Atmel. “This is not a TI chip, this is from Atmel. Reason why they didn’t go with a TI chip is because TI doesn’t have a chip that does this,” she adds.

The wearable boasts a 1.56-inch, 320×290 display with a backlit LCD touchscreen. The Moto 360’s body comes in at a diameter of 46mm and height of 11.5mm, while the leather band model weighs 49g – essentially, the same weight as your everyday wristwatch. Enhancing its durability, the attractive display is protected by a Gorilla Glass 3 covering.

Like all Android Wear devices, the Moto 360 features a wake-on-wrist-flick and automatic voice response via the “Ok Google” trigger, which allows a wearer to send texts, set reminders and such. It is compatible with any Android phone or tablet running Android 4.3 or higher, and has IP67 water resistance with submersion of up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. What this means: Shower, good. Swimming, not so much.

The Moto 360′s 320mAh battery should get you about a day of mixed usage. Additionally, the smartwatch comes with a pretty standard 4GB of internal storage and 512MB of RAM, in addition to the vibration motor included for notifications. Like other smartwatches, the Motorola accessory can be connected to your mobile device using Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy.

Interested in learning more about the brains of this wearable gadget? Watch the entire teardown from Adafruit below!

MIDI drum glove keeps the beat with FLORA

Known as “FLORA,” Adafruit’s wearable electronics platform is built around Atmel’s Atmega32u4 MCU. The microcontroller boasts built-in USB support, eliminating the need for pesky special cables and extra parts.

As Adafruit’s Limor Fried notes, FLORA is extremely “beginner-friendly.” Indeed, the device is difficult to accidentally destroy by connecting a battery backwards, thanks to a polarized connector and protection diodes. Meanwhile, an onboard regulator ensures even connecting a 9V battery won’t result in damage or ruined projects.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, numerous Makers are using FLORA to design a wide range of creations.

Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at a MIDI drum glove designed by Adafruit’s very own Becky Stern that is powered by the versatile Atmel-based platform. 

Aside from FLORA, key project components include:

• 

4X small piezos
• 
USB mini cable
• 4X 1M ohm resistors
• Ribbon wires
• Glove
• Scrap fabric

Stern kicks off the MIDI drum glove project by ironing out some fabric to match the glove, cutting four small pieces slightly larger than her fingertips and ironing a small hem on one side.

“Put your glove on and establish what spots make contact with the table, then mark those spots with a pencil. Thread your needle and double the thread over, then tie a knot at the end of the tails,” Stern explains in detailed project tutorial.

“Stitch through one of your pieces of fabric and affix it to the glove fingertip over the pencil mark with a whip stitch. Be careful not to stitch the glove finger closed! Check periodically to be sure your stitches only pierce the intended layer. Stitch halfway around the pocket, tucking the seam allowance in as you go.”

Next? Stick the piezo in the pocket, finish stitching it shut, leaving the wire sticking out towards the back of the hand. Tie off and cut the thread.

“Repeat for the other three piezo pockets, and put your glove on to double check they are tapped when you finger drum,” Stern continues.

“We found the best placement was not necessarily on the pad of the finger, for instance the thumb is around to the side and the pinky is across the first knuckle.”

Next, Stern solders the FLORA circuit, tweaks/uploads the sketch and adds MIDI support to Flora.

“Once your glove is functioning properly, it’s time to tack everything down. Put the glove on and position FLORA so that the wires don’t tug when you make a fist. Tape it down so it stays put before stitching,” she concludes.

“Use plain thread to stitch FLORA’s unused pads to the glove. On the side where all the wires come in, stitch around the wires instead of through the pads. Tack the wires in place with strategic stitches along their lengths. Remove the tape and try on your completed drum glove!”

Interested in learning more? You can check out Becky Stern’s full tutorial on Adafruit here.

A tinyAVR USB volume knob

A Maker by the name of Rupert has designed a tinyAVR-powered USB volume knob based on Adafruit’s popular Trinket (Atmel ATtiny85) platform.

“After purchasing a Trinket to experiment with and Adafruit having a great mentality for Open Source Hardware, I decided to modify my own ATtiny85 volume control PCB to make it compatible with the Trinket’s 5Volt firmware (flash_me_hv_5volt.hex)! (which is Arduino compatible),” Rupert explained in a recent blog post. “This gives access to direct programming without the need for a separate programmer from the Arduino IDE. Its also nice to support the hard work done at Adafruit by purchasing one of their Trinkets.”

As the HackADay crew notes, an awesome looking RGB LED ring powered by Adafruit’s Neopixel was ultimately added to the design, albeit at the expense of a “mute” control.

“The PCB Rupert fabbed is pretty well suited for being manufactured one-sided,” wrote HackADay’s Brian Benchoff. “If you’ve ever wanted an awesome volume knob for your computer, all the files are available from Rupert‘s blog here.”

In addition to creating the above-mentioned tinyAVR USB volume knob, Rupert is reportedly working to load Adafruit’s Trinket bootloader on Atmel’s ATtiny84, an MCU with a total of 8 analog pins.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Adafruit’s popular Trinket can best be described as a tiny microcontroller board built around Atmel’s versatile ATtiny85.

“We wanted to design a microcontroller board that was small enough to fit into any project – and low cost enough to use without hesitation,” Adafruit’s Limor Fried (aka LadyAda) explained.

“[It is] perfect for when you don’t want to give up your expensive dev-board and you aren’t willing to take apart the project you worked so hard to design.”

Fried describes the Attiny85 as a “fun processor,” because despite being so small, it boasts 8K of flash and 5 I/O pins – including analog inputs and PWM ‘analog’ outputs.

“We designed a USB bootloader so you can plug it into any computer and reprogram it over a USB port just like an Arduino,” Fried continued. “In fact we even made some simple modifications to the Arduino IDE so that it works like a mini-Arduino board. You can’t stack a big shield on it but for many small and simple projects the Trinket will be your go-to platform.”

There are currently two versions of the Trinket: 3V and 5V. According to LadyAda, both work the same but have different operating logic voltages.

“Use the 3V one to interface with sensors and devices that need 3V logic, or when you want to power it off of a LiPo battery. The 3V version should only run at 8 MHz. Use the 5V one for sensors and components that can use or require 5V logic, [as] the 5V can run at 8 MHz or at 16MHz by setting the software-set clock frequency,” she added.

CNBC analyzes open source hardware

Writing for CNBC, Tom DiChristopher confirms that the rapidly evolving open-source hardware (OSHW) movement is currently in the process of migrating from the garage to the marketplace.

As DiChristopher notes, companies that follow an open-source philosophy make their physical designs and software code available to the public. By doing so, they engage a wave of Makers, hobbyists and designers who don’t just want to buy products, but rather, offer a helping hand in developing them.

“Patents still work as an incentive for some people, but for a growing number of companies, sharing is more lucrative and fulfilling,” Alicia Gibb, executive director of the Open Source Hardware Association, told CNBC.

Gibb specifically highlighted Atmel-powered Arduino boards as an example of popular open hardware, pointing out that one of the biggest assets open-source hardware manufacturers have is the communities they’ve built among users who share their values and their roots as Makers.

“[For example], one of the things that the Arduino has that cannot be duplicated no matter how cheap you make it is the community that surrounds it,” said Gibb. “Even if somebody else comes along and tried to sell something cheaper I don’t think it would matter.”

According to Catarina Mota, research chair at the Open Source Hardware Association, the rise of open-source hardware companies can be attributed to a number of cultural and technological trends. Indeed, hardware makers have built on the open-source software movement that gained steam in the ’90s, while the ubiquity of the Internet allows hobbyists to collaborate on physical products. The barriers to making hardware and other equipment have also fallen, says Mota, thanks to cheaper prototyping tools such as the Atmel-powered MakerBot and RepRap 3D printers.

The rapid growth of the movement is also reflected in the success of marketplaces for DIY developers and open-source enthusiasts like New York-based Adafruit Industries, a company which uses Atmel microprocessors (MCUs) in a number of its platforms, including FLORA and Trinket. To be sure, Adafruit’s revenue has tripled year over year, with the company expecting full-year revenue for 2013 to reach $20 million. Of course, customers are not just limited to hobbyists and isolated Makers.

“Our customers are moving more and more towards commercial endeavors and a very large portion of our orders are from professionals at very large companies,” Limor Fried, founder of Adafruit, told CNBC.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, perhaps the greatest success to date in OSHW (open-source hardware) has been the Atmel-powered Arduino, primarily because it established a vibrant ecosystem. Writing in Electronic Design, David Tarrant and Andrew Back note that all the hardware design files were made available – so both Makers and engineers could study the design and extend it for their own purposes in a commercial or non-commercial context.

“These files were combined with an accessible and equally flexible software platform. [Clearly], Arduino has benefited from derivative and complementary third-party hardware and is today a growing brand with a strong reputation for quality,” the two explained.

“Following its example, hardware companies are increasingly seeing OSHW as an opportunity to seed the market and educational establishments with their technology. Development kit design files are increasingly available under open-source licenses. And as was the case with software, more reusable components are becoming available.”

According to Tarrant and Back, another key product example of the OSHW revolution is the Atmel-powered MakerBot 3D printer, the initial generations of which were entirely based on open-source design.

“Although open-source hardware has to date largely been seen as existing at the simpler end of the electronics design spectrum, it embraces two major assets within the engineering community—goodwill and collective intelligence—and is being recognized as an important movement with increasing opportunities across both industry and education,” the two added.

Adafruit’s Gemma has Atmel under the hood

Adafruit has debuted Gemma, a tiny wearable platform board packed in a 1″ diameter package. The device – powered by Atmel’s versatile Attiny85 – is easily programmable with an Arduino IDE over USB.

“We wanted to design a microcontroller board that was small enough to fit into any project, and low cost enough to use without hesitation,” Adafruit’s Limor Fried (aka LadyAda) explained in a recent blog post. “Gemma is perfect for when you don’t want to give up your Flora and aren’t willing to take apart the project you worked so hard to design. It’s our lowest-cost sewable controller!”

Fried described the Attiny85 as a “fun processor” because despite being so small, the device boasts 8K of flash and 5 I/O pins, including analog inputs and PWM ‘analog’ outputs.

“We designed a USB bootloader so you can plug it into any computer and reprogram it over a USB port just like an Arduino (it uses 2 of the 5 I/O pins, leaving you with 3),” Fried continued. “In fact we even made some simple modifications to the Arduino IDE so that it works like a mini-Flora. Perfect for small and simple projects – the Gemma will be your go-to wearable electronics platform.”

In addition to Atmel’s ATtiny85, key hardware specs include:

• 1.1″ / 28mm diameter and 0.28″ / 7mm thick.
• Easy-to-sew or solder pads for embedding in wearable projects.
• 8K of flash, 512 byte of SRAM, 512 bytes of EEPROM.
• Internal oscillator runs at 8MHz.
• Ultra low power, only 9 mA while running.
• USB bootloader with LED indicator programmable with the Arduino IDE
• Mini-USB jack for power and/or USB uploading
• Rugged and foolproof bootloader process
• ~5.25K bytes available for use (2.75K taken for the bootloader)
• On-board 3.3V or 5.0V power regulator with 150mA output capability and ultra-low dropout.
• Up to 16V input, reverse-polarity protection, thermal and current-limit protection.
• Power with either USB or external output (such as a battery) – it’ll automatically switch over
• On-board green power LED and red pin #1 LED; reset button for entering the bootloader or restarting the program.
• 3 GPIO – The 3 independent IO pins have 1 analog input and 2 PWM output as well.
• Hardware I2C capability for breakout and sensor interfacing.

Interested in learning more about Adafruit’s Gemma? You can check out LadyAda’s detailed Gemma tutorial here.

Adafruit launches ATtiny85-powered Trinket

Adafruit has launched the Trinket, a tiny microcontroller board built around Atmel’s ATtiny85.

“We wanted to design a microcontroller board that was small enough to fit into any project – and low cost enough to use without hesitation,” Adafruit’s Limor Fried (aka LadyAda) explained.

“[It is] perfect for when you don’t want to give up your expensive dev-board and you aren’t willing to take apart the project you worked so hard to design.”

Fried describes the Attiny85 as a “fun processor,” because despite being so small, it boasts 8K of flash and 5 I/O pins – including analog inputs and PWM ‘analog’ outputs.

“We designed a USB bootloader so you can plug it into any computer and reprogram it over a USB port just like an Arduino,” Fried continued. “In fact we even made some simple modifications to the Arduino IDE so that it works like a mini-Arduino board. You can’t stack a big shield on it but for many small and simple projects the Trinket will be your go-to platform.”

There are currently two versions of the Trinket: 3V and 5V. According to LadyAda, both work the same but have different operating logic voltages.

“Use the 3V one to interface with sensors and devices that need 3V logic, or when you want to power it off of a LiPo battery. The 3V version should only run at 8 MHz. Use the 5V one for sensors and components that can use or require 5V logic, [as] the 5V can run at 8 MHz or at 16MHz by setting the software-set clock frequency,” she added.

Key specs include:

• ATtiny85 on-board, 8K of flash, 512 byte of SRAM, 512 bytes of EEPROM.
• Internal oscillator runs at 8MHz, but can be doubled in software for 16MH.z
• USB bootloader with a nice LED indicator looks just like a USBtinyISP and can be programmed with AVRdude (with a simple config modification) and/or the Arduino IDE (with a few simple config modifications).
• Mini-USB jack for power and/or USB uploading.
• On-board 3.3V or 5.0V power regulator with 150mA output capability and ultra-low dropout.
• Up to 16V input, reverse-polarity protection, thermal and current-limit protection.
• Power with either USB or external output (such as a battery) – it’ll automatically switch over.
• On-board green power LED and red pin #1 LED.
• Reset button for entering the bootloader or restarting the program. No need to unplug/replug the board for reset or update.
• 5 GPIO – two shared with the USB interface. The three independent IO pins have one analog input and two PWM output as well. The two shared IO pins have two more analog inputs and one more PWM output.
• Hardware I2C / SPI capability for breakout & sensor interfacing.
• Mounting holes.

The Trinket can be purchased here for $7.95 here, while an extensive guided tour is available here.